Multi-award winning television personality Noele Gordon was born, Joan Noel Gordon, in East Ham, East London, on December 25th 1919.

From those humble beginnings she worked her way up to become one of Britain's most well known personalities. From the 1930s to the 1980s Noele starred in hit theatre productions, radio plays, live television dramas and Britain's first half-hour daily 'soap opera'.

She also worked as a presenter on both television and radio and released several records.

Noele also has many firsts to her credit thanks to being part of Associated Television during its formative years in which she became the UK's first female senior executive.

At her peak, in the 1970s, she was the most popular woman on television. Winning awards such as ITV Personality of the Year, most compelling character and Best Actress between the years 1968 and 1981. In 1978 the TV Times banned her from being nominated in their awards, however she became the first to be inducted in their TV Times Hall of Fame. Other awards were bestowed on Noele from publications ranging from The Sun to The Daily Telegraph.

She became the nation's first soap queen and was adored by up to 18 million viewers in the UK for her serial role as Meg Richardson in Crossroads, a role that also made her an international superstar. While in recent years other serials have seen endless clips shows and even repeats, Noele's era hasn't had much in the way of television revisiting and therefore other sagas and characters have become 'more popular' in retrospectives. However what people vote for now is irrelevant, what the viewers thought at the time is what matters and at the time they placed Noele first year after year.

Noele Gordon died on April 14th 1985, however her legacy lives on with her era of Crossroads continuing to prove popular with numerous NetworkDVD releases.

In 2012 ITV celebrated Noele with a primetime half-hour celebration of her work in The Unforgettable Noele Gordon. The series, up against EastEnders, gained over 3.2 million viewers on ITV in England and Wales with later showings on STV and UTV making it one of the most watched of the Unforgettable 2012 run.